Month: March 2024

Sea Adventure

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Pen and ink drawing of ship with sails flying in billowing waves under the drak promontory with the Abbey drawn in black.
Sailing ship under Whitby Abbey in stormy conditions, Charles George Harper.
Source: Historic England Archive

A Sturdy Whitby Collier in the Storm of November 1810

It is my pleasure to welcome Mike Salter as our guest blogger for this article, which combines the old and new meanings of the word ‘adventure’: the shipwreck adventure of a vessel named the Sea Adventure, highlighted on the 300th anniversary of her build in 1724.

At that time the word ‘adventure’ meant a commercial venture, so a shipowner would ‘adventure’ his capital on the sea (although the modern word ‘venture’ was also commonly used). This naturally led to the meaning of ‘risk’, which has segued into today’s modern meaning, an exciting and/or risky activity or event. These two elements are present in her story, which Mike has researched and compiled into a booklet (details below).

He distils his research into the Sea Adventure‘s life and times below:

Her Life: Whitby and the Collier Trade

Colliers were the workhorses of the Industrial Revolution, bringing millions of tons of coal from the coalfields of the North-East to London and the east coast ports such as (King’s) Lynn, (Great) Yarmouth and Ipswich. Overlooked by many, they nevertheless fuelled British economic growth and overseas expansion.

My interest in the Sea Adventure stemmed from finding out more about the loss of King John’s regalia in the Wash, leading to finding out about a buried medieval bridge in Holbeach [1], Holbeach as a minor port and the wreck of a ship on Holbeach Marsh in November 1810. [2] (It was this research detailing her cargoes, masters, voyages and events during her lifetime that led to the booklet!)

Initial reports named her as the Sea Venture, a 100-year-old Whitby collier built in the reign of Queen Anne (1702-14). Both her name and age proved to be incorrect. Sea Adventure was her correct name [3], and a Jarvis Coates built her in his Whitby yard in 1724 under George I. [4] This year of 2024 is therefore the tercentenary of her construction.

George Young in his 1817 History of Whitby wrote, while the ship was still in recent memory:

”The strength and durability of the Whitby ships may be inferred from the great age some of them have attained. The Sea Adventure is a noted instance; that vessel braved the storms of 86 years, having been built in 1724 and lost in 1810; nor did she go to pieces even at the last , but was carried up by the violence of the wind and of the flood tide into the midst of a field, where she was left high and dry, a good way from the sea on the coast of Lincolnshire.”

The construction of Sea Adventure was that of a ‘cat’ collier with round bluff bows, a deep waist and ‘pinked’ or tapering at the stern. The Earl of Pembroke which became Captain Cook’s Endeavour was such a ship, all of which were built more than 40 years after Sea Adventure, in Whitby. To the disgust of some, he chose these ships over sleeker vessels as they were robust, seaworthy and easily repaired on shore, especially in exotic parts. [5]

Historic black & white engraving of a three-masted ship heeled over for repair in the river with people in boats inspecting the ship's bottom, and anchors, casks and ropes visible in the foreground.
Print c.1780 depicting Cook’s Endeavour badly damaged and under repair after running aground on the Great Barrier Reef in June 1770 (his first voyage). © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

Whitby was a bustling port in the 18th and 19th centuries [6], building many ships for its shipowners and for those of many other ports. It was the seventh largest ship building port in the UK. Many ships were employed on the North Sea and Baltic routes. These were treacherous, with severe storms, rocks, sandbanks, and the threat of pirates and the press gangs. [7] R Weatherill counted more than 400 ships off Whitby at one time, with many from the north-east. He was also told that up to 800 would arrive in the Thames on one tide if there was a favourable wind.  It is no wonder there were often collisions both in port and on the open sea. [8]

Scan of historic black & white print of a busy harbour scene, with tall sailing ships coming and going, and moored, all along the left of image, small rowing boats criss-crossing the harbour, and to right quayside houses and people promenading along the quay
Whitby Harbour scene, by permission of the Whitby Literary & Philosophical Society

In 1794, during the war with France, Whitby was deemed important enough to warrant fortification against attack from seawards . There were also seamen’s strikes in Shields, broken up by the Royal Navy. Some colliers including Sea Adventure, sailed the Baltic routes.

It is interesting to note the fact that the French and Dutch navies were collaborating from 1786 onwards in the fortification of Cherbourg as a port from which to safeguard the Channel, keep a watchful eye on England’s main naval base of Portsmouth, and potentially attack England. [9]

Late 18th century pen and ink plan of the harbour addressed to the Right Honourable Henry Lord Mulgrave, with textual observations to left and a topographical view of the entrance to the harbour below.
Francis Gibson’s plan for the defences of Whitby, c1794, with Board of Ordnance ‘broad arrow’ stamp. A version of this map exists in North Yorkshire archives, with two significant differences: the defences of the Half Moon Battery, unspecified in this version, are shown in the North Yorkshire version, with 12 x 18pdrs en barbette and a ‘bomb-proof’ magazine, while the ships shown here ‘running inshore for shelter’ have grounded for ‘want of tide to carry them into harbour’ in the other version. Both versions show the line of fire afforded to an ‘enemy ship’ approaching Whitby (marked in red here).
MP/WHA0096 Source Historic England Archive

Her (Very Long) Times – the longevity of ships

Sea Adventure was not unique in being lost at 86 years of age as there were several vessels which operated over 100 years.

Perhaps the most famous was Betsy Cains, built in the King’s Yard in 1690 or 1699, but which had become erroneously associated with bringing over William of Orange in 1688. Her actual history was trading with the West Indies, then transfer to the London and Baltic coal routes, followed by hire as a government transport over 1808-10, during the Napoleonic Wars. On 17th February 1827 she was wrecked at around 130 years old on the notorious Black Middens rocks while leaving her home port of Shields, laden with coal for Hamburg. Many people took pieces of her venerable timbers to make snuff boxes and other souvenirs, and Orange Lodges in particular were keen to have a memento, given the mythical association with William of Orange. [10]

Liberty and Property (known in Whitby as Old Liberty and Property) was built in 1752 and sailed the East Coast and Baltic routes, remaining on the Whitby Register until 1840. Later she transferred to Shields and was eventually wrecked in 1856 in Gotland, Sweden – at 104 years old. Her goods were sold for the benefit of the underwriters. She was described as ‘being engaged in the coal, Baltic trade and transport service – a strange old-fashioned looking craft, attracting a good deal of attention in the Thames and other ports she visited.’ [11]

In 1888, the little schooner Lively ended her days wrecked on the Norfolk coast near Cromer. Built at Whitby in 1786, she was more than 100 years old at the time of loss, and was described in an advert for sale as being suitable for beach landings. The Whitby Gazette of 2nd June 1888 carried a full report and a ‘lament’ to the much-loved old ship, the last lines of which read:

When through the bridge away she glides to find her ancient moorings
Old Whitby’s ships and tars have gone, one after one in order
Yet Whitby’s sons are still the same in courage and in valour. AN OLD FRIEND.

There were other ships which may have gone on to reach their century, such as the William and Jane, built Whitby 1717, and transferred to Newcastle in 1789, or the Content’s Increase, built Whitby 1750 and sold to Newcastle in 1835.

Her demise – the wreck of Sea Adventure

‘Dreadful Storm’ is how newspapers described the weather event of 10 November 1810, when raging winds from the ESE forced many ships on shore between Whitby and Great Yarmouth. There was a minimum of 61 shipwrecks that night, with around 40 lost on the east coast. [12]

Modern colour photo of a shipwreck in a lightbulb-shaped bottle with a museum label entitled "Last Adventure"
Model of a ‘shipwreck in a bottle’: the wreck of the Sea Adventure on Holbeach Marsh in a lightbulb some 1.5km over the salt marsh. G Leach, by permission of the Whitby Literary & Philosophical Society

That was the night which saw the loss of the Sea Adventure, bound from Shields for London with coal, a southbound voyage with land to the west on the vessel’s starboard side, which, in an ESE storm simply drove her towards shore.

The label on the ‘shipwreck in a bottle’ says the Sea Adventure ‘must have been sailed goose-winged i.e. downwind with the foresails on one side of the vessel and the mainsail on the other, leaving it too late to reduce sail, which the maker recognised from a situation he had seen. Goose- or gull–winged is defined thus: on a fore-and-aft rigged vessel ‘the jib or staysail is boomed out on the opposite side to the mainsail in a following wind to present the largest possible area of sail to the wind’ (Oxford); wing and wing with a ‘sail extended on each side, as with the foresail out on one side and the mainsail on the other’ (Collins), i.e. a 180-degree angle to maximise the area of sail exposed. (This use is seen Kipling’s poem The Coastwise Lights: ‘we greet the clippers wing-and-wing that race the Southern wool’.)

It is interesting that G. Leach (the modeller) says that the same fate befell the Esk, a Whitby whaler wrecked on Redcar Sands in September 1826, while ‘running before a storm’ on her return from a season in Greenland. [13] The Esk had picked up some sailors from the Lively whaler lost in the ice and of the three sailors who survived from the Esk, one was a William Leach, carpenter’s mate (perhaps an ancestor of the model-maker?)

The label to the ‘shipwreck in a bottle’ also picks up something crucial that illustrates the impact of this storm: that the Sea Adventure was not only driven ashore, but driven a long way inshore.

Historic black and white aerial photograph, showing an expanse of marshland at low tide criss-crossed by creek to centre and top of image, with fields of cultivated land to bottom of image.
RAF photograph taken 2 December 1944 at Holbeach, showing the vast expanse of the marshland to the north. Sea Adventure was driven inshore across the fields, possibly towards the bottom left of the present image. RAF_106G_LA_67_RP_3085 Source Historic England Archive

There were comprehensive reports of the loss of Sea Adventure in the London Chronicle of the 15th November, Stamford Mercury of the 16th, Hull Packet of the 20th, and Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol. 80, Part 2, of ships wrecked or affected by this storm (described by some as a hurricane or a tempest). Of the Sea Adventure it said she was, for the first time, ‘compelled to run for Boston Deeps’ and the crew, having struggled ashore in boats, were ‘denied even the indulgence of a barn as shelter from the pelting rain’.

Her end had come in one of the most severe storms to hit the east coast of England, which centred on nearby Boston itself. The London Chronicle reports that it started raining in Boston at 7am and continued all day. The ESE wind blew hard and from 6-9pm was ‘a perfect hurricane’. This combination of the hurricane force winds with a record height of tide in Boston – some 4 inches (10cm) above any previously seen – created a tidal bore or eagre of huge potency which swept away sea bank defences flooding the low-lying land. A vessel was deposited on the Turnpike Road near Boston town centre at Black Sluice, forced by the tidal surge up the River Witham.

Many sailors and some on land lost their lives, with reports of sailors who lashed themselves to masts as their ships sank, with other ships powerless to help them. Sixteen bodies were interred at Claxby (Stamford Mercury 23rd November), nine were picked up four miles from Lynn, and many, many more drowned with more bodies washed up on every tide (Hull Packet 20th November).

The meteorological explanation for the violence of the storm is discussed in an article [13] on storm-surge flood risk in eastern England:

The third category of surge is driven off the northeast side of a slow moving deep cyclone in the southern North Sea when isobars become concentrated owing to the presence of an anticyclone to the northwest of Scotland.  Strong pressure gradients drive onshore winds directly onto the coasts of eastern England . . .

This report notes that the same climatology was associated with one of the highest ever high water levels reported at Boston, Lincs. on 10 November 1810, consistent with the loss of the Sea Adventure, the vessel deposited on the Turnpike Road at Boston, and other craft.

Extent of the storm – other ships driven ashore

The Hull Packet of 20 November reported that the Retford of Gainsborough, with coals, was driven about a mile up the Marsh near Boston. Drakard’s Stamford News of 16 November reports that on the 10th ‘a barge drifted over the sea bank near the Scalp and may now be seen in the midst of pastures, with sheep grazing around.’

Three vessels were driven up the Fossdyke Washway , towards Spalding with one, the Ann, carried half a mile into the Marsh from the Fossdyke channel.

In the same report: ‘Near Sutton Wash are two vessels thrown upon a very high marsh, so they will not be got off but by cutting to the sea.” Captain Melion of the Amity, which was driven ashore near Lynn and went to pieces (he, his wife and children struggled ashore), reported that a light collier [i.e. in ballast] was left on the ebbing of the tide in the midst of a farmyard (Hull Packet 20 November).

Some sank at sea and at least one became a hazard: a Caution was issued to ‘Masters of Coasting vessels trading to Boston, Lynn and Wisbech, that six to seven miles West by North of the Sutton-on-Sea signal point the Masts of a Brig were above sea level on all but the highest Spring tides.’

Overall, most ships had a lifespan of 20-40 years, but relatively few ships were got off if driven hard into the rocks, sandbanks or shore, and even fewer which were deposited ‘high and dry’, as these ships were. Whatever their age, luck seems to have run out in the end.

After the wreck of Sea Adventure

Confusion over ship’s names, many having the same name, even from the same port, is not surprising and plays its part in the Sea Adventure story. Many ships were called Adventure, others Sea Venture (as Sea Adventure was in some early records) and the storm reports in papers.

But this was compounded by the fact that a ship Adventure, master Bullock, was wrecked on the same day, 10 November 1810, at Ingoldmells, north of Boston. Both ships were sold at auction but one advertisement for the later sale of the Adventure on 28 December, on the shore, referred to the Sea Adventure. Both vessels would have been broken up in situ and it is interesting to note that Sea Adventure carried 17 keels of Tanfield Moor coal (from the Durham coalfield) and was also armed, as guns were sold.

From the mid-18th century merchant ships of any size had been advised to carry arms to deter privateers. These were relatively light armaments, but in 1757 the Ann of Shields, carrying 5 guns and 8 men, saw off a French privateer of 14 guns, after a four-hour engagement. There were many other examples of successful defence; Captain Humble of the Milburn, North Shields, with 4 x 4-pounders and 13 men fought off a French schooner with 14 guns (Sun, London, 6 January 1801).                                      

Then there was La Modeste, lost in the same storm as the Sea Adventure, but this is an interesting story in its own right and is a blog for another day . . .

Modern colour close-up view of 'shipwreck in a bottle' showing the structure of the vessel and the build up of glue creating the waves inside the bottle.
Close-up of ‘shipwreck in a bottle’, with a figure visible on deck. Almost submerged by the waves, the boat can just be seen by the prow. By permission of the Whitby Literary & Philosophical Society

With many thanks to Mike for his blog and we look forward to his return with the Modeste in a later blog, and we would also like to thank the Whitby Literary and Philosophical Society for all their help and support in creating this blog.

A full description of the life and voyages of the Sea Adventure is in a booklet Sea Adventure: A Sturdy Whitby Collier 1724-1810, by M A W Salter, available from the Whitby Literary & Philosophical Society and North Yorks Archives.

Footnotes

[1] Lincolnshire Historic Environment Record MLI123637 Medieval Bridge, Holbeach

[2] Historic England Research Records maritime dataset, Sea Adventure, HOB UID 942792

[3] Sea Adventure ship’s registration 1786 & de novo 1800 (North Yorkshire Archives); Stamford Mercury, 23 November 1810, p3

[4] Cook Museum, Whitby; Gaskin, R 1909: The Old Seaport of Whitby (Whitby: Forth) p234

[5] Gaskin, op.cit.

[6] Smith, K & Keys, R 1998 Black Diamonds by Sea: North-East Sailing Colliers 1780-1880 (Newcastle: Newcastle Libraries & Information Service)

[7] Fraser, S 2023 “Documents Relating to the Official Dutch Naval Visit to Cherbourg, 8-10 September 1786”, The Mariner’s Mirror, 109:4, 461-468, DOI: 10.1080/00253359.2023.2264658

[8] Historic England’s maritime records are full of collisions in major rivers, particularly for the Thames, Humber and Mersey, as well as in the open sea, especially the North Sea, Straits of Dover, and the English Channel.

[9] Winfield, R 2005 British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793-1817 (Barnsley: Seaforth Publishing)

[10] Historic England Research Records maritime dataset, Betsy Cains, HOB UID 1031974

[11] Liverpool Mercury 11 October 1856; Weatherill, R 1908 The ancient port of Whitby and its shipping, with some subjects of interest connected therewith. Compiled from various registeres of shipping, periodicals, local newspapers and histories, etc. (Whitby: Horne) p56

[12] Historic England Research Records maritime dataset, 2024

[13] Historic England Research Records maritime dataset, HOB UID 937642

[14] Muir Wood, R, Drayton, M, Berger, A, Burgess, P, and Wright, T, 2005 “Catastrophe loss modelling of storm-surge flood risk in eastern England”, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 363: 1407–1422 DOI: http://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2005.1575

Happy 200th Birthday RNLI!

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Modern photograph of blue and white rowing boat with name Tyne painted in blue letters on white background, under a canopy with pillars in similar colours
Lifeboat Tyne, built 1833, which, together with its protective canopy, is Grade II Listed.
The master of the Norwegian brig Olaf Kyrre wrote in to a local newspaper to express his thanks to the crew of the Tyne for coming to their rescue in 1882.
© Mr A Hubbard. Source: Historic England Archive IOE01/00865/08

Today (4th March 2024) sees the 200th anniversary of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, founded as the Royal National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck.

That original name outlines the purpose of the institution: far too many people were being lost to shipwrecks. It was an occupational hazard of seafaring, as old as time, and our records show both that many ships went aground several times, getting off again, before finally being lost, and that individuals could likewise be shipwrecked several times in their careers with the same ship or across several ships.

The RNLI was much needed, and its foundation timely. We know that in English waters alone 220 losses were reported in 1820, 434 in 1821, 191 in 1822, 281 in 1823, and 287 in 1824. Two-thirds of those in 1824 were accounted for by two devastating storms in October and November that year, and they covered everything from small local vessels to large ocean-going ships and everything in between. Numbers of shipping losses fell back towards 171 in 1825. [1]

It’s important to say that the loss of ships and the loss of life isn’t always correlated and the purpose of the Institution was to save lives, not ships, and their foundation took place against an increasingly globalised trade which saw growing numbers of ships in English waters, in turn escalating the potential for wreck events to occur.

There are certainly events where the total loss of a ship also entails the loss of all hands – particularly where the vessel founders at sea, or gets into a very difficult position at the base of a cliff or upon dangerous rocks which make rescue nearly impossible. Sometimes, though, a vessel might go to pieces but all hands be saved. The inbound liner Suevic was wrecked off the Lizard in 1907 and to this day remains the RNLI’s biggest rescue, with over 500 crew and passengers successfully rescued, no-one being left behind. Her aft section was salvaged in the end, and rebuilt with a new bow, but the remains of her original bow still lie on the rocks from which the lifeboatmen rescued all hands over a hundred years ago.

Historic black & white photo of library on board ship, with heavy wooden chairs and desks and lit from above by a skylight cut into the deck above.
Reading Room, SS Suevic, photographed in 1901, 6 years before the RNLI attended the wreck in 1907.
Bedford Lemere BL 16481/003 Source: Historic England Archive

Conversely, a ship might remain intact but all the crew are lost, for example, swept overboard.

The RNLI and their volunteers helped sailors and passengers beat those odds, and they built on past efforts to improve the lot of the seafarer: from the lighthouses and light vessels operated by Trinity House that either warned ‘keep away, keep away’ or signalled ‘here is the safe light that guides you in’ [Our blog on Trinity House’s 500th anniversary in 2014] to the efforts of local communities and individuals. Services for coastal defence – the coastguard, the preventive and revenue men who made up the anti-smuggling forces, and the sea fencibles (coastal forces for home defence) – would often go to the assistance of vessels in distress where needed.

The impulse was always to help. It was traditional for ships to assist one another in distress where they possibly could as it was always recognised that they themselves might be in need another time. In the event of a collision, the colliding ship not stopping to assist the crew of the collidee, which would normally bear the brunt of the impact, was as strongly deprecated as a hit and run would be on today’s roads.

There were local boatmen who would always go to the assistance of others in various places, sometimes as a result of pilotage work, such as the Scillonian gigs and the Deal boatmen, a difficult and dangerous job: half the crew of a Scillonian gig were drowned going to the rescue of the Mary in distress in 1816, while in 1809 with the sea ‘dashing over them mountains high’ the crews of several wrecks, including the Admiral Gardner (now a protected wreck) driven onto the Goodwin Sands ‘were all collected on the poops waiting for that relief which the Deal boatmen seemed anxious to afford them.’ [2]

Elsewhere there might be local charitable organisations: we read in 1797 that the sole survivor of the John’s Adventure was brought ashore at Bamburgh, Northumberland, ‘much swelled’, having ‘nearly lost the use of his speech, sight and limbs, but by the care of the Dispensers of Lord Crewe’s noble charity, he is happily restored’. [3]

There were also technological innovations that arose out of particular tragedies. One tragedy at the mouth of the Tyne inspired a competition to build the first self-righting lifeboat that could be kept permanently on station wherever needed. In 1789 collier Adventure was returning to her home port at Shields from London, but a northerly gale prevented her from coming into port and despite her crew’s valiant efforts to weather the storm and keep trying ‘in a most tempestuous sea’ they were unsuccessful, ‘the sea making a free passage over her’ and she was wrecked with loss of life in full view of the local population on the notorious Herd Sand. [4]

The same conditions that made it so difficult for her to come in made it equally difficult for vessels to go to the rescue: ‘ . . . the waves ran so high that no boats durst venture to the assistance of the crew . . . ‘. This became a common theme of many later rescues by the RNLI: they often made they way to stricken vessels against almost insuperable odds.

In a similar vein, Captain Manby was inspired by other wreck events to develop his rocket apparatus, which fired a line establishing a means of communication with the stricken ship close inshore, to which a thicker rope could be attached to afford a means of escape. ‘His invention of throwing a rope to a ship stranded on a lee shore [i.e. with wind and tide flowing towards the land making it very difficult to get off again] proved the certainty of its never-failing success on the Elizabeth of Plymouth’ at Great Yarmouth in 1808. [5]

Each of these individual and collective efforts incrementally aided the safety of life at sea but they were all disparate efforts, either with specific purposes or locally focused. The establishment of the RNLI turned lifesaving into a nationally cohesive effort with specialist resources, harnessing that will to help others seen over the centuries and making it possible for members of the public to contribute to their work, as they still do today. They have always worked with local resources, crews and boats and other organisations, historical and modern, in what we today would call inter-agency working, their boats crewed by sailors who had intimate knowledge of local conditions and hazards, and whose efforts were always recognised on a national basis.

The records in the Historic England database of wrecks therefore include over 1,500 wrecks attended by the RNLI since 1824. [6] Without doubt the death toll in all cases would have risen but for their involvement. For example, we learn in October 1824 that the schooner Reuben, of and for Grangemouth, from the Baltic with oats, stranded at Cheswick Sands and went to pieces. The local preventive boatman and fishermen who came to the rescue were awarded £2 each by the Institution – not everyone on board could be saved, but their attendance prevented a loss with all hands. [7]

In peace and in war the RNLI has come out to rescue crew and passengers, and over the history of this blog we have covered a variety of events they have attended. For example, the perils of the sea, of hidden dangers and high winds, were exacerbated during the two World Wars both for the rescuers and the rescued, amongst minefields and under aerial bombardment. We have twice paid tribute to the ‘greatest lifeboatman of them all’ Henry Blogg, in his rescue of the crew of the Fernebo in 1917 and the wreck of the Monte Nevoso in 1932.

It is always worth reiterating that the conditions that see ships coming to grief are the very same conditions lifeboat crews have to battle, sometimes from the opposite direction, making rescue operations extra arduous. A lee shore or high seas – or both – could mean that local lifeboats had great difficulty putting out, and it was always a race against time before a ship broke up or sank.

Sadly the rescuers could also become victims, such as in the Mexico disaster of 1886 off Southport, in which all the crew were ultimately rescued (and the ship recovered to be wrecked once more as the Valhalla) by the Lytham lifeboat, the Southport and St. Annes lifeboats having been lost while attending the same wreck.

Historic England’s records of shipwrecks have enabled us to appreciate not only the activities of the RNLI in and of themselves, but also the documentary record they have left behind.

A very typical characteristic of wreck reports over the centuries is that they vary enormously between sources, literally between viewpoints. The view of events from witnesses on land is very different from those at sea, and we frequently reconcile reports that come in from different coastal settlements that will describe the same location of loss very differently: 2 miles east of one, 3 miles west of another, for example. Conflicting testimonies are often given in Board of Trade inquiries into wreck events, particularly in the event of collision, where each side will seek to blame the other. Ships in convoy will each have a different understanding of what is going on during a convoy battle or naval engagement, each holding their own while rendering assistance to another, while unable to see the whole, widely-dispersed battlefield and individuals on those ships will similarly have a different understanding of what is happening according to their rank, station, activity and location. All of this can be exacerbated by literal fog or the ‘fog of war’.

The perceptions of rescuer and rescued will also naturally vary, but this is where the records of the RNLI come into their own for the purposes of shipwreck documentary research (as well as human and historic interest) and greatly increase our understanding of events, of timelines, weather conditions, and the disintegration of the vessel, recorded in great detail.

For example, in our recent blog on the Solstad in January 1944, it is the RNLI’s record of attendance that sheds more light on the event than official convoy records, and as these events slip out of living memory, the documentary resource they represent becomes ever more important in our understanding of archaeological remains.

The rich heritage of lifeboats can be found everywhere on the English coast – from listed lifeboat stations to memorials to those lost in ships and from lifeboats, and the archaeological remains of ships which were attended by the RNLI. Why not go to the Heritage List for England and Historic England archives using the keyword lifeboat to discover that heritage in our listed buildings, protected wrecks and photographic records, or visit the RNLI’s History pages?

Happy Birthday RNLI!

Footnotes

[1] Information from Historic England’s wreck database, 2024

[2] Widely reported in the press in these words, for example London Packet and Lloyd’s Evening Post, Friday January 27 to Monday January 30, 1809, No.6400, p2

[3] Newcastle Courant, 11 February 1797, No.6,297, p4

[4] Newcastle Advertiser, 21 March 1789, No.21, p2

[5] British Gazette and Berwick Advertiser, 12 March 1808, No.11, p3

[6] Information from Historic England’s wreck database, 2024

[7] British Gazette and Berwick Advertiser, 4 December 1824, No.884, p4

Diary of the Second World War – February 1944

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LCI(S)511

Historic black and white photo of landing craft profiled in port view, showing a long, low craft and men clustered astern (to right of image)
LCI(S) 507 at sea (FL 9821) Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205120809

In early 1944 Britain was watching and waiting. ‘Lorries and tanks kept rumbling towards the south coast, so we knew something was going to happen,’ in the words of Corporal Cant, based at RAF Ford, Sussex, describing the later spring of 1944. ‘Nobody said anything about it. But more and more of them were building up. We saw, and we knew, but we didn’t know when, and we didn’t talk about it.’

There is something of that sense of anticipation in the wreck highlighted for February 1944, LCI(S)511, Landing Craft Infantry (Small) 511, on the Channel coast facing a France that soon would be the focus of a liberation effort by just such craft. With the benefit of historical hindsight, we can say ‘soon’, but at the time it must have felt that ‘soon’ would never come: scenes such as the one below, in the countdown to D-Day, were months away.

Historic black and white photograph of several landing craft roped together in harbour, with men in military uniform gathered on their decks
Commandos of 1st Special Service Brigade aboard LCI (S) (Landing Craft Infantry (Small)) at Warsash, Southampton, 3 June 1944. (H 39041) Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205359405

All anyone could do was watch, wait, and play their part: and only those ‘in the know’ had an overview of what was happening behind the scenes. An initial joint plan, i.e. a combined Allied plan, was issued on 1 February for the invasion, with the naval outline plan following later that month. [2]

The Landing Craft Infantry (Small), LCI(S) for short, were built 1942-3 with bullet-proof armour plating over a wooden hull structure designed by the Fairmile Marine boatbuilding company, which specialised in motor boats (the company grew out of motor manufacture). The ‘Fairmile H’ design of the LCI(S) was produced in kit form and outsourced to other small boatbuilding firms for assembly, such as Leo Robinson at Oulton Broad, Suffolk, who built LCI(S)511 and LCI(S)533. [Explore Robinson’s yard in this historic image.] Others were built on Oulton Broad by Collins and Brook Marine, and production was dispersed countrywide, both because of the small scales of the yards and for security reasons. At 110 tons, 105 feet long x 22 feet wide, they were intended to carry a complement of around 100 men (descriptions vary from 96 to 102 troops). [3]

At the same time operational bases came into being in the run-up to D-Day. From 1942 the Southwick Ship Canal on the Sussex coast between Shoreham-by-Sea and Portslade became a Combined Operations Landing Craft Base, known as the ‘stone frigate’ HMS Lizard. HMS Lizard was further developed in 1943 and by January 1944 was ‘very busy’ with both large and small landing craft. Lizard‘s vessels and personnel are known to have participated in exercises over February 1944. [4]

The former river channel of the Adur was canalised to provide a harbour free from the natural silt deposit processes that were otherwise threatening to clog up the harbour mouth. It runs parallel to the seashore, with the river and harbour mouth further west, and sloping shingle beaches on the seaward side.

Modern colour photo taken from the viewpoint of the shingle bank in the foreground and to right which encloses the canal from the sea, looking to both arms of the canal east and west, under a heavy greyish sky.
Shoreham Harbour, seen from the eastern arm, looking towards the western arm (Southwick Ship Canal). To the right of the photograph is the outlet to the sea.
© Paul Gillett, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2360037

As a ship canal for both smaller and larger vessels, landing craft could be virtually hidden in plain sight, and as a USAAF air photo from April 1944 in Historic England’s collections shows, it would all appear quite innocuous, with existing buildings requisitioned to form the base, and a natural gathering place for craft.

The advantages of this location as a base were a natural seaward defence with an easily controlled harbour mouth, and on the shoreward side are sloping shingle beaches, ideal for rehearsing landings.

Modern colour photograph on a sunny day taken from a path at the top of the beach (left of image), looking down towards the beach running to the east, (centre of image) broken up by boulder breakwaters at intervals. To the right is a calm blue sea.
Beach and breakwater looking east towards Portslade in 2008.
© John Lucas CC BY-SA 2.0 https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1012841

The day after the Allies issued their joint plan on 1 February 1944, LCI(S)511 was beached at Portslade, Sussex, to become a total loss. [5] What happened there? There seems to have been nothing particularly unusual about the weather that day, with local readings recording a force 4 (‘moderate breeze’) at south-westerly and temperatures mild, between 49-53 degrees Fahrenheit, which would be recorded as 9-11 degrees Celsius today. [6]

We know of at least 74 other vessels that were lost in force 4 conditions in English waters since records of weather conditions at the time of loss began in the mid-19th century. They tend to have two broad characteristics: either something else happened to them, such as springing a leak, running aground or involvement in a collision, i.e. factors which are not weather-dependent and can be overwhelming in themselves; or they were small vessels, fishing smacks, yachts, cutters, barges, and so on, which could be quite disproportionately affected by weather conditions, depending on wind direction and their activity or lading at the time.

Records appear to be quite brief, but it is possible to read between the lines a little. The key word is that LCI(S)511 was beached. There are only two reasons for beaching vessels, i.e. to deliberately put them ashore: the first, and more benign, reason, is that they can be effectively ‘parked’, as sailing colliers once did to deliver their coal on the Sussex coast, or fishing boats can still be seen today drawn up on the foreshore in many places – and, of course, beaching was what landing craft were designed to do!

As we have seen, much of the Sussex coast, as at Portslade, comprises a gently sloping shingle shoreline, ideal for beaching vessels, and this history of safe landing grounds was what fitted Portslade and Shoreham on either side of the Adur to be a landing craft base.

However, beaching on the foreshore can leave the craft so drawn up very vulnerable if a storm subsequently ensues. In other words, they can be safely beached, then lost after beaching, but this seems unlikely in the weather conditions reported for 2 February 1944. With the beach ideal for the landing craft’s function, the design of the vessel suited for that purpose, and the base so close by, and operational and repair support therefore easily accessible, it seems surprising that LCI(S)511 became a total loss, in the brief and bald facts available to us.

So possibly something happened to LCI(S)511 that caused her to be beached, rather than being beached in the natural course of exercises, say. We turn now to the less benign reason for beaching vessels, which tends to happen on the nearest shore in extremis, for example having sprung a leak, taken on water, following a collision, or to avoid running onto a significant hazard nearby. In other words, something has happened to force the ship to run ashore to avoid sinking at sea.

It therefore seems plausible that something happened to LCI(S)511 at sea, possibly taking on water for some reason, or perhaps a collision, after which it proved impossible to get her into the shelter of the ship canal basin. Such an event would be natural on exercises: naval exercises ‘gone wrong’ in some way have historically caused several wrecks that are well-documented in the record, and a prior contributory factor which forced the vessel ashore seems the most plausible reason for the ensuing total loss that was reported.

The date of loss does not tally with the major exercises that were undertaken in the run-up to D-Day, but as we know that HMS Lizard was involved in exercises in February 1944, it seems reasonable to surmise that there were smaller-scale and more localised exercises that fed into major rehearsals as preparations for the invasion gathered pace.

Thus LCI(S)511 has the potential to combine both broad characteristics of vessels lost in force 4 conditions: a hint of a prior background cause, not influenced by the weather, that forced her to be beached, and the relatively small size of the vessel more vulnerable to mild weather conditions once already damaged.

Epilogue: LCI(S)508 was, until recently, seen as Valeur among the houseboat community of Shoreham-by-Sea on the Adur, not far from where LCI(S)511 met her end. For more on her story, explore footnote [7].

Footnotes

[1] Cant, R, 2012 unpublished oral history reminiscence, recorded and documented by Serena Cant

[2] Naval Historical Branch (nd) Operation Neptune: The Normandy Invasion: D Day 6 June 1944 (Ministry of Defence: published online)

[3] Slee, G 2000- Combined Operations (published online); naval-history.net (nd) Royal Navy Vessels Lost at Sea, 1939-45 – by type: Amphibious Warfare Vessels (published online), based on HMSO British Vessels Lost at Sea 1914-18 and 1939-45 (London: HMSO) known as BVLS; Navypedia (nd) LCI(S) type small infantry landing craft (LCI(S)501) (1943) (published online); Wikipedia (nd) Fairmile H landing craft (published online)

[4] Royal Navy Research Archive (nd) HMS Lizard: Combined Operations Landing Craft Base (published online)

[5] BVLS, Section III, p56

[6] Met Office 1944 Daily Weather Report February 1944, 2 February 1944 (online)

[7] Spitfires of the Sea (nd) Shoreham Survivors (published online); O’Sullivan, T 2021 ‘Tales from the Riverbank’, Beach News: the magazine of Shoreham Beach Residents’ Association, Summer 2021 issue (online)